World Book Night encourages love of reading
Local residents to distribute free books
CONWAY — A small group of avid readers entered the Faulkner County Library in Conway around 6 p.m. Tuesday to pick up some books — not books for themselves, but a box of 20 books each that they plan to distribute Monday as they participate in the first-ever World Book Night U.S.
Nancy Allen, an adult services and reference librarian at the Conway library, said World Book Night U.S. is an ambitious campaign to give away half a million free, specially printed books across America. A similar campaign was successfully introduced in the United Kingdom and Ireland in 2011 to bring attention to books for adult readers.
“We are among 5,000 cities in the United States that are participating,” Allen said. “We had several inquiries about it, and seven people have picked up their boxes of books today. Although this may be a small number of participants, we hope it will increase next year.”
Allen said the participants had to apply online, select and rank three books from a list of 30 that they would like to distribute and write a short essay on why they wanted to participate.
Mimi Rohweder of Conway was the first to arrive at the library on Tuesday. A sociology teacher at the University of Central Arkansas, Rohweder said she found out about the program on author Maya Angelou’s website.
“I thought it sounded interesting,” Rohweder said. “And the more I read about it, the more I liked it.”
Rohweder plans to distribute her copies of John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany to some of her students as a way of encouraging reading.
Julie Connelly of Conway chose a Sue Grafton book, Q is for Quarry.
“I plan to take the books to Bethlehem House,” she said. “If I have any left over, I will bring them back to the library for additional distribution.”
“I learned about this from a friend in Michigan,” said Connelly, who is a district sales manager for Chevrolet. “I love to read and thought it would be awesome to do this.”
Hendrix College student Christina Langston of Magnolia said she learned about World Book Night from a couple of online sources — Facebook and teenreads.com. She selected Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.
“I’ve been a reader since kindergarten,” Langston said. “This sounded like a great program, so I signed up. I’m going to give them to people at Hendrix.”
Kim Trujillo drove to Conway from Clinton, where she teaches seventh-grade English. She also learned about the program at teen reads.
“My son has a baseball game on Monday, so I’m going to give out my books there,” she said with a smile. She chose Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson.
Wendy Russ also drove from Clinton. She is a writer and a real-estate agent and read about World Book Night online. She selected The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.
“I plan to take [the books] to a local café and give them away there,” she said.
Two other participants — Cassandra Goetz of Conway and Janet Kanady — picked up their boxes of books earlier on Tuesday and were not at the 6 p.m. reception.
“I first heard about World Book Night on the blog Hip 2 save,” Goetz said in an email. “Learning about the outreach to enhance reading really spoke to me as a worthy cause, and I immediately felt compelled to participate. I have the fondest memories of going to the library and getting to check out my own books when I was young, and it warms my heart to be included in this cause.”
Goetz lives in Conway and attends UCA. She chose the book My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult, and plans to distribute the books through student organizations in which she is involved.
Kanady, the library media specialist at Dover Middle School, said in an email that she heard about World Book Night through the American Library Association.
“I jump at any chance to provide books to my students,” she said. “A lot of my students are from low-income families and can’t afford to purchase books. Sadly, I have quite a few students that are nonreaders. I thought if I could give them a book of their very own, I might be able to change that.”
Kanady plans to distribute her books at school to needy students that tend to be nonreaders. Her book selection was Because of Winn Dixie by Kate Dicamillo.
Justin Bird, a student at UCA, chose the book Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Who by Juno Diaz. He plans to distribute his books at UCA
According to information from the website www.worldbooknight. World Book Night U.S. is a nonprofit organization sponsored by American book publishers, the American Booksellers Association, Barnes & Noble, the American Library Association, the Association of American Publishers and Ingram Book Distributors.
According to the website, April 23 was selected for the date of distribution because it is the UNESCO International Day of the Book, chosen in honor of Shakespeare and Cervantes, who both died on April 23, 1616. It is also the anniversary of Shakespeare’s birthday.